


Smile

by cloudmist



Category: Persona 3
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 12:33:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13613472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudmist/pseuds/cloudmist
Summary: Minako deals (poorly) with Shinjiro's death.





	Smile

**Author's Note:**

> so this is something i wrote a couple years ago and just got around to posting. its been a while since ive played persona 3 so sorry if there are any inaccuracies. i also wrote this during a time when i was experimenting with not using quotation marks for dialogue, so let me know if that makes it confusing to read and i'll add some.

Smile, he tells her, as his blood trickles onto the pavement, as his eyelids droop and his body relaxes in the worst way. She wants to cry and scream about how it’s not fair, to hole up in her room and sob until she can’t anymore. She wants to throw her evoker off the bridge and maybe herself after it. She wants to take his remaining suppressor pills and go to bed before midnight and never think about the Dark Hour or any of this mess ever again.

But he told her to smile (and Akihiko threw out the pills). It was the last thing — the only thing — he ever asked of her. So, fine. She’ll smile.

She smiles at his memorial, where she tells fond, lighthearted stories of his gruff kindness and his love of cooking. She smiles when each of her friends ask if she’s okay, because why wouldn’t she be, she’s Minako Arisato, leader of SEES, bright, upbeat, optimistic. Of course she’s okay.

She smiles after perilous battles, relishing each victory. She trains in Tartarus almost every night, sometimes by herself when her team is too tired. She trains hard, painfully aware that while she can defeat hundreds of Shadows, she’s helpless against a gun. It’s the first time she’s wished her evoker was actually what it looked like. Still, she can imagine every Shadow is Takaya, or sometimes Jin, and it makes her smile.

She smiles when she gives the correct answer in class, when she participates in all her clubs, when she works part time at the café. She sees movies, she goes to karaoke, she takes Koromaru for walks.

She doesn’t sleep. She doesn’t eat. But it’s fine. If she stops to sleep, she knows she’ll just lie awake in bed and think and if she thinks she’ll cry and if she’s crying, she’s not smiling.

She has to smile. He asked her to.

Hey. Are you okay? Akihiko asks her one evening, when the dorm is quiet, and she’s in the kitchen cooking something but she can’t quite remember what.

I’m totally fine! She says so brightly that she doesn’t realize she’s crying until he reaches over and wipes a tear off her cheek and then she’s sobbing and oh god why isn’t she smiling she has to smile it’s the _one thing—._

Minako, it’s okay. Akihiko hugs her and she lets out a wail. He wouldn’t want you to do this to yourself. She cries, hard ugly crying. She gets Akihiko’s shirt wet with tears and snot, which is gross, but she can’t bring herself to care. Her jaw and chest and bones ache. She just wants Shinjiro to be here, to be alive and with her, and it’s not fair, it’s not fair.

Akihiko rocks her gently, murmuring soft words of sympathy and understanding and this time instead of letting them bounce off her skin like raindrops, she drinks them all in, all the comfort only Akihiko can provide, because the rest of her friends are sad too, sure, but Akihiko _understands.  
_

But I never told him I love him, she chokes, trying to steady herself. I thought it was obvious but I don’t think he knew and if I had just—.

He loved you too, Akihiko whispers, and Minako realizes he’s been crying too. But you know how stubborn he is. Nothing could have changed his mind.

She lets out a breathless little laugh. She feels lightheaded. He said the same thing about you.

What?

He said you were stubborn.

Akihiko’s arms tighten around her.

He also called you a crybaby, she says.

That assholes, Akihiko mutters.


End file.
